


When All Candles Be Out

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Hats, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Relationship Discussions, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 00:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6632911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bert heads out for a one-night stand. Jack doesn't do flings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When All Candles Be Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> For the prompt “All cats are grey in the dark.” (Jack/Bert) Requested by firesign23. This was supposed to be a drabble. Because of course it was.

There wasn’t much of a moon that night, which was the way Bert preferred things, when he had a fella to meet. Moonlight on the water was all right if you wanted a romantic mood, but romance wasn't on his mind at the moment, and anyhow he didn’t plan to spend that much time looking at the harbour. 

Fred had told him to turn up around eleven. There was a solid pile of shipping crates stacked up in front of where the _Lady Eleanor_ was berthed, and the habour master had already been paid off to look the other way if he saw anything funny happening on or around that particular cargo ship. Bert hadn’t asked what the ship was carrying. Fred was an old friend from his dock-working days and he was involved in things that were better left unsaid. Bert wasn’t looking for work or trouble tonight, just a bit of fun with an old chum.

He found the ship and the shipping crates easily, hurrying down the almost-deserted docks with his hat pulled low and the collar of his jacket turned up. To anyone watching, he knew, he looked like a regular wharf rat, hunting for a late-night job. The air was warm in on the streets and cooler down by the water, but not so cold that Bert wasn’t looking forward to getting his clothes off. Fred had given him a good time before...

It wasn’t Fred who was waiting behind the crates. “Sonofa—Robinson?”

A familiar fedora tilted up to reveal an angular face and a very puzzled expression. “Albert.” His bright blue eyes looked unnaturally pale in the moonlight.

“What’n hell are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, apparently.” Jack Robinson tucked a sheaf of papers inside his trench coat. “I brought in a suspect tonight – Alfred Cooke—”

“What’s he suspected of?” Bert demanded. 

“Any number of smuggling and extortion charges, but the attempted stabbing of a dock worker is all I’m personally concerned with.” Jack raked his gaze over his own sometime-lover. “He told me he was expecting a colleague, about some business. Imagine my surprise when he told me your name. I’d almost convinced myself it was a completely different Albert Johnson.”

“Look, I don’t know nothing about any business or any dock workers. I was just here t’ meet Fred, for a yarn—”

“At almost midnight behind a pile of filthy boxes?” Jack raised an eyebrow and looked... Bert wasn’t quite sure what that expression was. “Albert. I think we know each other better than that by now.”

Bert let out a huff and pulled the hat from his head, punching it softly once or twice. “Awright, fine. I—I _did_ come t’ see Fred, but it was for a fling, y’know? Bit of a one-off. Well, you—my other friend’s been busy," he continued, made nervous by Jack’s silent stare and suddenly acutely aware that they might be under surveillance. “What was I s’pposed to do?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Jack quietly. “I don’t do flings.”

“...Then what d’you call us, eh?”

“Something I take a little more seriously than that,” Jack replied, grabbing Bert by the sleeve and hauling him behind the crates for a brief, searing kiss. Bert stiffened in surprise and then melted against him. All right, then he guessed no one was watching, and gripped Jack’s arse and hung on. Damn the man, how did he do this? Every time, without fail... Bert’s cock swelled to life inside his trousers, and he moaned and tried to undulate against Jack’s pelvis. The inspector broke away. “I’m leaving this place in ten minutes,” he said, almost without panting. “Find my car and be in it by the time I get there.”

“Or what?”

“Or nothing, Albert. Same as always.”

Jack went round the boxes and walked off down the harbour, his hands balled at his side, his long legs striding effortlessly over the warped wet boards. 

Bert found Jack’s car. He leaned up against the side and began rolling a cigarette to steady his nerves. God damn Robinson, anyway. There were never any stakes to their relationship. No penalties, no strings, no ultimatums. Because of that, Bert found he was willing to do almost anything Jack Robinson asked of him... especially in bed. 

He smoked like an overheated engine for ten minutes, until the inspector showed up. “Back seat,” said Jack shortly. “And put out the cigarette.” Bert climbed in, half-expecting to be followed and pushed down on the leather. Wouldn’t be the first time... But no, Jack slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “There’s almost no chance your friend Fred Cooke isn’t guilty,” he said bluntly. “There were a number of witnesses to the assault.”

“...Christ.” Bert ran his hand through his hair. “I knew Fred had a temper on him, but... will the other guy live?”

“He’s in hospital, but he’s doing well, for the moment... You don’t seem too broken up by this. I thought you said this man was a friend of yours.”

“Well. I’ve known him for years. We’ve fooled around a bit, now and then. But we weren’t close, not like me an—Cec,” Bert finished, a bit lamely. “Like I said, I was just ‘ere for a fling. You know how it is, right?”

“No. I don’t _do_ flings,” Jack repeated, putting the car into gear. “Random lays without consequence or courtesy... They don’t appeal to me, Albert.”

“Then just what in the hell are we?” Bert asked again, more quietly this time. 

Jack glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. “Not everyone’s the same in bed just because the lights are off.”

Bert snorted softly. “An’ just how often do we make it to a bed?”

“I’m sorry, which one of us is the impatient one?”

“You! How long did it take you to decide you wanted to jump my bones?”

“About thirty seconds. But that was six years ago.”

“I—what?”

“Hmph. The first time you were hauled into the station for striking, I seriously considered following you into the showers and having my way with you. You’ve got a hell of a mouth, Albert, in more ways than one.”

“An’ don’t you know it,” Bert jeered, secretly rather pleased. “An’ you didn’t come after me because...?”

“Because I don’t do casual sex.”

“You don’t do casual _anything_.”

“You’ve never complained before now.”

“I ain’t complaining, Robinson, I just—well, maybe I want a straight answer.” Bert glanced out the window, watching the darkened city fly by. “Thought all I was t’ you was a good time. An’ we’ve had some good times. But I’ve had some good times with other blokes too, and t’ tell you the truth, I ain’t lookin’ to settle down an’ be anybody’s kept rentboy, y’know? I figured that when Miss Fisher came back, that’d be it. An’ now she’s back and... well, if you’re thinking about something else... I dunno what to think about that.”

The car came to a stop outside a house that, for a moment, Bert didn’t recognize. It wasn’t his boarding house and it wasn’t Robinson’s bungalow and it bloody well certainly wasn’t Miss Fisher’s Eye-talian palace of a house. Then it came to him, a memory of going with Miss Fisher to bring some sort of medicine to the inspector while he was laid up with a gammy leg, at this very boarding house. It was a homey sort of place, and Bert seemed to remember Robinson saying that it was run by an old family friend. “You still keep a room here?”

“Yes. For nights when I’ve been on the docks til all hours and I’m too damned tired to drive home.” 

“This where you bring all your flings?” Bert couldn’t help but ask.

Jack didn’t rise to the bait. He pulled the car into the driveway and round the back of the house. “Go inside,” he said, handing Bert a key, and gesturing to a back door. “Number Fourteen. Make yourself at home. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Robinson, I don’t—”

“Please, Albert.”

His tone brought Bert up short. He’d heard Jack say ‘please’ in a lot of different ways, but never with that much... well, pleading. He took the key and went, dodging around a small grey ghost that darted across the dirt driveway with an indignant meow. Bert noted the solid state of the back steps and the clean interior stairs that led to the upper floor. Place was a damned sight better than his old digs.

Number Fourteen, when Bert had conquered the stiff lock and turned on the electric light, was a largish room, with a neatly-made bed in one corner and a little table and range in the other. It wasn’t much, but it was certainly heaps bigger than the room Bert and Cec had shared, before Cec had married and moved into his own house. Bert kept a room over a pub now. It wasn’t especially quiet, but it was clean. Not that he was there much, these days. When he wasn’t in Robinson's bed, he was usually in Miss Fisher’s, or at least that’s how it was starting to seem. And before that, he’d had Cec. The beds in their old room hadn’t been big enough for them to sleep curled up together, but the room was small enough and the beds close enough that it almost hadn’t mattered. Bert wasn't even sure he knew how to sleep alone, anymore. He dropped his hat onto the table and looked around. 

There wasn’t much life to the room. No pictures on the walls, no decoration at all besides some dusty old china figurines that might’ve belonged to the room rather than the renter. Nothing but a few books on a chair by the bed. picked up the top one. _“The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen_ ,” he murmured.

“You should read it,” came Jack’s voice from behind him. “It’s moving stuff.”

“I don’t go in for poetry,” Bert said, putting the book down. He turned and faced Jack and opened his mouth to speak.

He never got the chance. Jack stepped forward and his mouth came down on Bert’s and Bert’s legs went out from underneath him, and he hit the bed hard. _Damn the man... Goddamn the man...!_

“What do you _want_ from me?” he demanded, when Jack paused for breath. 

“You,” said Jack simply, threading out the buttons of Bert’s waistcoat and shirt. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, from the first time I saw you. I wanted your mouth,” he growled, kissing Bert’s lips again. “I wanted your arms and your arse and your back.” He pulled Bert's undershirt from his waistband and slipped his hands underneath it to pull him closer. “I wanted your cock and your confidence and the strength of your convictions, you... blustering little bantam rooster.” Jack stripped Bert of his upper clothes and then got to work on his trousers. “You, strutting and preening like you own the city, and raising seven different kinds of hell. I wanted it in my bed, all of it. I still do. What’s a random faceless fling compared to that?”

“I... oh, sweet Jesus,” Bert moaned, looking down in hazy disbelief as Jack pulled his aching cock into his mouth and sucked him down. But all he saw was the familiar brown fedora, and he wanted to see Jack. His breath beginning to burn fast and shallow in his chest, Bert reached down and plucked the hat from Jack’s head. He meant to put the hat on top of the books but his brain was rapidly turning to pudding, and because hats were meant for heads, he put Jack’s hat on his own head and then braced himself with one hand behind his back, trying not to thrust too hard into Jack’s mouth. “Christ almighty, Robinson, where the _fuck_ did you learn to... Wh... why me?”

Jack drew his lips back over Bert’s shaft, just barely grazing the tender head of his cock with the edges of his teeth. “Because I _admire_ you, damn it,” he said, his lips already swollen with their labours. “I don’t sleep with people I don’t admire. Albert... I don’t expect anything more from you than what you’re giving. It’s more than I ever thought I’d get. But you’re _not_ some fly-by-night fuck to me. You matter to me.” Jack looked up and blinked at the sight of Bert wearing just Jack’s own hat and almost nothing else. Then he grinned lopsidedly, and Bert gulped. “Why d’you think I was on the docks at near midnight, waiting for you to turn up? Just to tell you that your mate had been arrested?”

“Thinkin’ you’d take his place, eh?”

Jack scowled, ducked his head and bit, hard and fast, on the inside of Bert’s thigh. “Shit!” Bert hissed, his mind reeling with the intense pleasure of the brief sharp pain. And then Jack laved the little wound with the flat of his tongue, and Bert moaned. 

“I wanted to tell you myself that he was in custody,” Jack murmured, kissing the mark and then nuzzling his nose in the warm, crinkling space between Bert’s thigh and balls. One hand came up to drape Bert’s leg over Jack's shoulder, and the other folded around Bert's sack and gently kneaded the heavy testicles. “I didn’t know... if he was important to you or not. You’d never mentioned him. And if he was anything like Cec was to you, I wanted you to hear the news from someone who... cares.”

“Ohhh...” The words echoed in Bert’s ears and he tried to make sense of them, but it was work, with Jack’s hand and mouth on his balls and the very presence of his breath making Bert harder by the second. “Cares?”

“Don’t get all mushy on me now, Albert,” Jack teased, rising up on his hands. He swiped his tongue up the underside of Bert’s cock, and then closed his lips around the shaft again, taking him deep into his throat. 

Three or four good sucks, that was all it took, to unravel the coil low in Bert’s belly that had been getting tighter and tighter since the moment he’d seen Jack at the docks. Bert’s head thudded against the pillow as he came, and then he couldn’t hold back anymore, and cried out sharply when the muscles of Jack’s throat constricted around his cock, swallowing and gulping eagerly. “You’re the most spunk-hungry bloke I have ever been with,” Bert said, panting. He reached down and clasped his hand around a fistful of Jack’s hair, holding him in place. “Or do I just taste that good?”

Jack jerked his head free and laughed. “Filthy-mouthed bastard.”

“I ain’t the one with a mouthful’a—” Bert’s arms were suddenly full of Jack, and the flavour of his cum on Jack’s tongue was incredible. 

“You do taste good,” Jack murmured, getting his still-clothed thigh between Bert’s legs and pressing up against his balls. “I can’t even count how many times I’ve had you in my mouth, and it’s always a delight. I’ve had my cock buried inside you more times than I can remember, and it’s never enough. So tell me, Albert: why would I bother with any other man when I can have you?”

“Glad t’ know I’m just that irresistible,” Bert said, licking a stripe up the side of Jack’s throat. “And you ain’t too shabby yerself, Robinson. I can’t say Fred was gonna be my first choice for a tumble t’night, but I wasn’t joking. You’ve been too busy fer me t’ get hold of, lately.”

“You’ve bloody well got hold of me now.” Jack reached up and nudged the brim of his hat, so that it sat on Bert’s head with a jaunty angle that went very well with the rest of his debauched self. “Care to do something about it?”

“I’ve got a few ideas... go turn off the light.”

“No,” said Jack, kissing him softly. “I want to see you.”


End file.
